I’m sitting across the breakfast table from my daughter the morning after International Day of the Girl.

“Did you hear the Boy Scouts are accepting girls now?” I ask.

“Cool,” she says and reaches for the comics pages of The News-Press as she slurps her cereal.

“Would you have wanted to join Cub Scouts?” I ask. She’s 12 now, too old to be a Cub Scout.

“Maybe.”

Riley had joined Girl Scouts when she was in first grade. They were called Daisies. And she hated it. She loved the socializing. But probably half way through the year she begged me to let her quit. It was too much like school, she said, and not at all what she thought it would be. She thought it would be camping and learning to tie knots and building a campfire with nothing but sticks and dry leaves. (Though I’m pretty sure even Cub Scouts don’t do that in first grade.)

Then my husband stomps over to the table irritated about some other news story he just read in his office.

“Did you hear about Cara Delevingne?” he asks. He’s talking about the Harvey Weinstein story of “sexual misconduct,” as I’ve seen some news reports refer to his actions. “I can’t believe this guy!” he adds. Men like Weinstein anger my husband, because they reinforce that image of “men only want one thing.”

“Who’s that?” my daughter asks.

We explain he’s some jerk who forced himself on women. Then my husband walks off into another room.

I look at my daughter, happily enjoying her cereal, and I fear we haven’t taught her enough.

“Some men are like that, you know,” I say. “Some people are like that. Not everyone, mind you. But it happens. If you’re ever in a situation where something doesn’t feel right, get out of there as fast as you can.”

“I know,” she says.

“I mean it, Riley. If someone tries to get you to go someplace where you’ll be alone and it doesn’t feel right, get away from there. Trust your instincts.”

It kills me to know that chances are she’ll encounter an overly aggressive man. I tell myself most men aren’t like that. For every Harvey Weinstein, there are many more men who wouldn’t dream of putting his own pleasure above a woman’s well-being. But then I read the comments section of the Boy Scouts story as I prepare to write my column, and I see comments about what an atrocity this is, how this will confuse our little boys and demasculinize an entire generation. One guy argued men are physically and mentally superior to women, not just different, but superior.

The October issue of Southwest Florida Parent & Child magazine is available online and at family-friendly locations throughout Lee and Collier counties. Among the many features, local families share their Hurricane Irma stories and we share a long list of fall festivals and Halloween events. Learn more at swflparentchild.com.